A Timely Reminder

Have you ever felt like you are stumbling around a project, looking for the right answer, and it just keeps evading you? I’ve felt that way over the past few months as I’ve worked on a logo and website project. The past two days have been especially frustrating. I spent hours in Photoshop working on one portion of the project and in the end, did not find the result to be the wonderful piece of design I was expecting.

I went to my colleagues for feedback. As always, they pointed out different areas that weren’t as strong as others, but in the process of the critique one of them reminded me that I am, after all, a designer. I need to make choices and trust my design instincts (which is not exactly what I wanted to hear at that moment). My question was, how can I rely on my design instincts if I don’t think my instincts are that great?

Good question. I spent a frustrated evening pushing through the project, and remembered this advice from Ira Glass. I share it as a reminder to all young creatives that yes (as I was reminding this evening), creating great work takes time. The frustrated, figuring-it-out phase is a normal place to be. Just don’t quit; keep going. Creatives like Ira Glass remind us that it will get better.